In our last episode we dove into such conspiracies as the JFK Assassination, the Denver Airport, and Jack the Ripper. I’m Leah…I’m Phil…and I’m Steve. Join us today as we continue our deep dive into Conspiracy Theories.This is Season Five, Episode 6: CONSPIRACY - PART 2
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INTRO AND STORIES |
INTRO Well, as we said last time, Conspiracy Theories are around us everywhere you look, even when you aren’t looking for them. Whether you are a believer, a doubter, or somewhere in between, you are definitely acquainted with conspiracy theories.
We talked a good deal about the Kennedy Assassination in 1963 and the resulting investigation which seems to have fueled the modern era of conspiracy theories.
Once again let’s refer to the Oxford English Dictionary for a definition. The phrase Conspiracy Theory is defined as an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy by powerful and sinister groups when other explanations are more probable. While the phrase “Conspiracy Theory” was first used in print in 1909, the concept has been around for centuries.
We also quoted a researcher named Gabriel Andrade who stated that conspiracy theories find fertile ground among people who have a distrust of government or authority figures or other forces that are perceived to be beyond their control.
Once again, we are staying away from the current political scene. But we do wish to reiterate that conspiracy theories are common tools of political candidates on both the left and the right. Media often pick up these theories and run with them because they attract viewers. We would like to encourage our listeners to use caution and reason before you accept wild assertions as truth. A good dose of skepticism might keep you from being caught up in something that you would later regret.
Find the Fuhrer
In April 1945 Berlin was a chaotic place to say the least. The Soviet Army had surrounded the city which was being defended by a few thousand fanatical Nazis. On April 20 several of Hitler’s most loyal staff braved their way to the Fuhrer Bunker to celebrate Adolph’s 56th birthday. But the following week saw the disintegration of the governmental framework that had been in place for the past twelve years. By April 29 the Soviets were engaged in block-by-block fighting and had approached within half a mile of the bunker.
On that day, April 29, Hitler received word that his Italian buddy Mussolini had been captured by a mob in Milan. He and his mistress were killed, and their bodies were hung up in Milan Square by the jeering crowd. Hitler did not want to suffer a similar fate. According to the twenty or so people who were still in the bunker with him, Hitler gave strict orders concerning what was going to occur on the following day. That evening he officially married his long-time girlfriend, Eva Braun.
The following morning, April 30, Hitler and Eva enjoyed a late breakfast. Then Hitler held a final briefing with his advisors. The situation in Berlin had grown dire. Hitler issued permission for those who remained in the bunker to attempt to escape through the Soviet lines as best they could. Around 2:30 p.m. he and Eva made their way around to all those who remained in the bunker and said their goodbyes, then they disappeared into his private study.
Within the hour everyone who was still in the bunker heard a single gunshot. Otto Gunsche, Hitler’s personal adjutant, Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet, and Traudi Junge, Hitler’s secretary among others entered the private study where they found the bodies of both Hitler and Eva Braun. Hitler appeared to have suffered a single gunshot wound to the right temple of his forehead. He may have also bitten a cyanide capsule at the same time. Eva Braun was stretched on the couch and had evidently bitten a cyanide capsule.
Per Hitlers written and verbal instructions given earlier that day, their bodies were to be carried outside the bunker, doused with gasoline, and set ablaze. Their dogs were also killed and were to be buried alongside them.
The situation outside the bunker was dangerous. The Soviets were getting closer every minute. Working as quickly as possible, the aides dug a trench outside the bunker. Then the two bodies were carried out and set ablaze. What happened next, though, is uncertain.
On May 2nd Soviet troops make their way to the bunker complex. All the German personnel were already gone except for one man who was responsible for maintaining the lights and the electric pumps which kept water out of the bunker. Soviet troops bungled their way through the bunker complex and did not secure the scene.
Two days later on May 4th, Soviets discovered what looked like a freshly dug and covered over trench in the courtyard of the nearby Reich Chancellery complex. Upon digging up the trench they discovered the badly burned and severely disfigured bodies of a male and female adult. They also discovered the bodies of two dogs.
The Soviets kept quiet at first about the discovery of the two bodies. They were shipped back to a mobile forensics unit in eastern Germany to undergo examination. Back in Moscow, Joseph Stalin was breathing hot on the investigators to learn whether the Fuhrer had managed to escape or not. Soon Soviet investigators came across both Hitler and Eva Braun’s dental records. Dental implants and bridgework found in the mouths of the two bodies did in fact match the photographs from their dental files. Broken cyanide capsules were also found in their mouths. Though unofficially the coroners still had some doubts, there was enough evidence for them to inform Stalin that the bodies were, in fact, Hitler and Braun.
The Soviets kept quiet about the discovery of the two bodies for more than two decades. It was not until 1968 that they shared with the western world that they had indeed discovered the bodies of Hitler and Braun . . . or did they?
According to historian Mark Felton who produces very high-quality history pieces on his YouTube channel, there are some major problems with the Soviet coroner’s report. For one thing, both corpses are about eight inches shorter than Hitler and Braun. This discrepancy was written off to shrinkage due to being burned. However, another problem was that there was no gunshot wound on the head of the male. In addition, the female had severe shrapnel wounds to her chest which penetrated her heart. The male was also missing one foot which appeared to have been surgically amputated. Moreover, even though broken cyanide capsules were found in the corpses‘ mouths, no trace of cyanide was found in their internal organs or brains.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, researchers from the University of Connecticut were allowed to examine tissue samples from the two corpses. They determined that while the female was approximately the correct age for Eva Braun, the male was at least twenty years too young to be Hitler. Based on all of this evidence, Felton has proposed that these corpses were not Hitler and Braun but had been made to look as though they were. Obviously, this raises a lot of questions.
There have always been persistent rumors that Hitler had somehow escaped to South America. Felton casts doubt on this idea. Hitler was not in great health in the last weeks of his life. He had difficulty even climbing the steps leading out of the bunker. Even if he had managed to get away somehow, he would have done so completely alone as all of his staff were still in the bunker until the early morning of May 2nd.
Instead, Felton surmises that the actual bodies of Hitler and Braun had been carried out into the pit where they were indeed doused with gasoline and set afire. However, after a couple of hours it was determined by his loyal staff that remained in the bunker that the fire was not hot enough to cremate the bodies the way Hitler had hoped. Fearful that the bodies would be dishonored by Soviet troops, Felton surmises that his aids secretly buried their bodies in an unknown location. Before burial their dental implants were removed. It would not have been difficult to find two corpses that were similar in size to Hitler and Braun. The nearby Reich Chancellery was being used as a makeshift hospital and morgue. A hundred or so bodies were stacked in the basement of this building. Once suitable corpses were located, the dental implants were inserted into their mouths along with the cyanide capsules. These bodies were then doused with gasoline and burned in the ditch for the Soviets to “discover”.
Felton’s theory is supported by a 1955 filmed interview with Heinz Linge, Hitler’s vallet. Linge stated that the Soviets never found Hitler and Braun. He claims that he and Martin Borman buried the bodies in a common grave, but he refused to say where.
Queen Elizabeth 1st Was A Man
We are reaching way back for this one. Elizabeth the 1st was the Queen of England for 45 years from 1558 to 1603. According to a website called deepenglish.com Elizabeth was highly intelligent and fluent in six languages. In spite of many proposals for matrimony, Elizabeth never married. She became known as the Virgin Queen.
But there is a conspiracy theory that says Queen Elizabeth was actually a man. Quoting from the website, “Many people would dismiss such a theory as sexist twaddle.” But the theory has one very notable proponent, the man who brought us Dracula, the writer Bram Stoker.
One day in the 1890s Stoker was visiting the English village of Bisley (Biz Lee). He discovered that they maintained an unusual tradition. Every May Day the village dressed up a boy in Elizabethan clothing. When he enquired about the nature of this odd festivity, he was told an astonishing story. According to the villagers, Elizabeth was sent to Bisley in 1543 when she was just a child to escape the Plague, which was sweeping London. A few months after her arrival her father Henry VIII (yes, that Henry the 8th) was planning to visit her. But the day before his arrival disaster struck. Elizabeth suddenly became ill and died. Her governess, not wanting to lose her head, began casting about for a suitable double for Elizabeth. She could find no girls but did locate a local boy who bore a remarkable resemblance to Elizabeth.
According to the town’s people, Elizabeth was buried in an unmarked grave and the boy was dressed in her clothes. When the king arrived, everyone was astonished when the trick succeeded. It is noted that Henry wasn’t the most doting father and it had been a few months since he had seen his daughter and so he didn’t notice that this wasn’t her. The success of this ruse condemned the boy to live a lie for the rest of his life.
The story was revived in the late 1800s when, during construction work, the body of a girl in Elizabethan dress was discovered in a stone coffin. Stoke was convinced that the body was that of Elizabeth I, and that the later Queen Elizabeth was actually a man.
Elizabeth did have an unusually strong character for her time. She ruled firmly but fairly. In her rousing speech to her troops in 1588 she declared, “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king!” In an age where women were expected to marry and bear children, she did neither. Her preference of large wigs and heavy makeup have continued to fuel speculation that she was covering up the fact she was a man.
So, was Elizabeth I actually a man, or is this just an attempt to subject her to gender stereotypes? She is buried in Westminster Abbey, so it would not be inconceivable to dig up her remains and do an analysis. However, British officials are unlikely to submit to such an examination of one of their most famous royals.
Again this information came from deepenglish.com and also mental floss.
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Edith Wilson
Now let’s talk about first ladies and the influence they have on the presidency. Being married to the president puts the first lady in a unique position. Many presidents have confided that their wives are their most trusted confidant. Various first ladies have had differing levels of influence on their husband’s / president’s decisions. But a little over a hundred years ago there was a rumor that one particular first lady was actually running the country.
Woodrow Wilson was elected president in 1912. His first wife, Ellen, who he married in 1885 died suddenly of Bright’s Disease on August 6, 1914. Wilson was so distraught by her loss that he told an aid that he hoped to be assassinated. In the weeks after his wife’s death, Wilson asked his cousin Helen to move into the White House to help him host official functions and to be a companion for him.
One day in the spring of 1915 Helen invited a friend named Edith Gait to join her in the White House for tea. Edith had been married to a much older man who was a prominent jeweler in Washington, DC, but she had been widowed for a couple of years. During the tea visit, Edith had a chance meeting with the president. According to Edith, “I came to the White House, turned a corner and met my fate.” Wilson was taken with her and immediately began courting her. Against the advice of his advisors, Wilson proposed to her, and they were married in the White House on December 18, 1915. (Is this the only instance of marriage of a current president?)
The following year, 1916, was an election year. Wilson’s advisors were concerned that the public would turn against him for marrying just a little over a year after his first wife’s death, but evidently most Americans didn’t mind as Wilson carried 30 states and his opponent only 18.
Later, in April 1917, Wilson led the U.S. into World War I. By then, Edith never left his side. They worked together in a private, upstairs office. He gave her access to classified documents and secret wartime codes. Wilson also let her screen his mail. He insisted that she sit in on cabinet and policy meetings, after which she would give her opinion concerning what decision should be made. She also let it be known to the president which of his advisors she trusted and which ones she didn’t. At the end of the war, she accompanied Wilson to Europe and sat in on the negotiations at the Treaty of Versailles. Wilson also sought to establish a new organization which he called The League of Nations to help prevent future wars.
Upon returning home, Wilson found that there was little support for his League of Nations proposal. So, in October 1919 with Edith by his side he went on a coast-to-coast rail tour to try to drum up support. One evening he became very ill, and the decision was made to return to the White House. Within a day Wilson suffered a massive stroke. Edith found him unconscious on the floor of his bathroom. After this, the president was rarely seen in public again. Rumors began to swirl around Washington that Edith was, in fact, acting as president.
What should happen in a case when the president is incapacitated is that they should resign, and the vice president takes over. But Edith would not allow this to occur. Vetting the carefully crafted medical bulletins that were publicly released, she would only permit an acknowledgment that Wilson badly needed rest and would be working from his bedroom suite. When a cabinet member came to discuss an issue with the president, they made it no further than Edith. If they had an important document for him to review and sign, Edith made the decision whether to take the paper to Wilson. If she didn’t think it was worth his time, the issue died on the spot. Though rumors floated around the capital, the public was never aware that for the last year and a half of Wilson’s administration, Edith was acting as president and making virtually all decisions.
This information came from a biography.com article on Edith Wilson. I do want to note that while Wilson’s plan for The League of Nations went largely unsupported by the United States at the time, the second World War brought to the forefront the absolute need for an organization to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security. So now we have the United Nations.
The Apollo Moon Landings
On September 12, 1962, President John F Kennedy gave one of his most famous speeches as he addressed students and faculty at Houston’s Rice University. “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” This speech was given in the early days of the NASA space program. Its purpose was to intensify the energies and focus the goal of the nation’s efforts: to be the first to put a man on the moon.
Of course, this was quite an ambitious goal. The U.S. was already behind the Soviet Union who had launched the first rocket into space and had also sent the first man, Yuri Gregarine, into orbit. Kennedy saw the space program as a very tangible way of measuring American capabilities against those of the Soviets. Throughout the 1960s Americans watched a progression from the Mercury Program which were single man missions, through the Gemini series which sent two astronauts at a time, to the Apollo missions which included three astronauts.
Each one of these programs was built upon knowledge and experience gained from the previous. All efforts were focused on beating the Russians to the moon. There were setbacks along the way. Most notably on January 27, 1967 when three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died in a fire during a pre-flight test in the Apollo 1 rocket while it was still on the launch pad. But by Christmas Eve 1968 Americans watched as Apollo 8 became the first craft to orbit the moon. Commander Frank Boreman read from Genesis 1 as the camera caught the Earthrise over the moon’s surface. Americans and the rest of the world’s people were watching again the following summer on July 20, 1969 when Niel Armstrong took that famous first step.
The Soviets, by the way, in a last-ditch effort to beat the U.S. sent an unmanned craft that was designed to land on the moon, dig up some soil, and fly it back to Earth. A couple of weeks before the launch of Apollo 11, the Russians uncharacteristically let it be known that their craft had crash landed on the moon and was unable to return to Earth.
The moon landing was and still is a proud moment for America. In 2019 a CBS News poll found that 45% of Americans still consider the moon landing their biggest source of national pride. Ah, but not all Americans are on the moon landing bandwagon. Enter one Bart Sibrel.
In 2001 Sibrel produced a documentary titled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon. This was one of the first in-depth videos to attempt to discredit the moon landing. At first glance, the video looks impressive, but upon closer examination; well let’s just say that the seems start appearing pretty readily.
One of the mainstays of Sibrel’s video are photos and videos of Hollywood movie sets complete with the Lunar Module sitting on a simulated surface of the moon. Uniformed astronauts are seen mingling with the camera and lighting crew. Sibrel cites this as evidence that the moon landings were faked. What Sibrel doesn’t explain is that NASA and the television networks did in fact set up several lunar surface mockups in order to show the viewing audience in advance what would occur during the moon landings.
I can clearly remember an episode of Captain Kangaroo when the good Captain himself left the Treasure House and visited one of these mockups to demonstrate for kids what was going to happen. He showed how Neil Armstrong, while at the top of the ladder, would pull a lever which would open a side panel and activate the television camera which would beam pictures back to Earth.
In addition to his videos, Sibrel is in the habit of attempting to corner the astronauts who were on moon missions and get them to swear upon a Bible that they actually went to the moon. He caught up with Neil Armstrong one day, but Armstrong simply said, “Mr. Sibrel, you don’t deserve answers”.
More famously, Sibrel confronted Armstrong’s crewmate Buzz Aldrin who became quite upset and punched him in the nose. Now, here is the way Sibrel describes the encounter. “If someone said I did not walk on the moon when I really did, that would be like throwing a feather at me. Why would throwing a feather at me make me so violently angry that I’d punch somebody in the face?”
But according to several witnesses who saw the incident and spoke to police afterwards, it was not quite so simple. As Aldrin was leaving a Beverly Hills hotel in 2002, Sibrel rushed up to Aldrin, demanded that he swear on a Bible that he’d walked on the moon, and then called him a coward and a liar and a thief. Then the 72-year-old Aldrin clocked him with a right hook. Concluding that Sibrel had provoked Aldrin, the assault charges against the astronaut were dropped by the district attorney.
According to an article in Mental Floss, a physicist and cancer biologist David Robert Grimes published a mathematical equation that estimates how many people it would take to keep a conspiracy secret, and how long it would take before that conspiracy was exposed to the public. According to the Grimes Formula, had the moon landing been faked it would have required 411,000 people to remain quiet, and someone would have spilled the beans within three years.
If someone was to intentionally fake the moon landings, it seems like they would have done a much better job of making it look real than the actual landings did. Apollo 11 was positioned in such a way that Armstrong was in the shadow of the lunar module as he was coming down the ladder. This gave him a rather ghostly appearance as the lighting was quite poor. It didn’t help that for the first ten seconds or so the picture was upside down. It took technicians a bit to turn the picture right side up. Apollo 12 was equipped with a color camera which worked fine until one of the astronauts accidentally pointed it at the sun which fried the lens and made it useless. We only got to see about twenty minutes of that moonwalk. Then everyone knows about Apollo 13 which didn’t get to land on the moon due to an onboard explosion. Four more missions did go to the moon concluding with Apollo 17 in 1972, but by that time President Kennedy’s mandate had already been met. These later missions included a moon rover which traveled over three miles from the lunar module. That would have taken an enormous soundstage to fake. That doesn’t even take into account the golf ball hit by Alan Shepherd on Apollo 14. Why would someone fake that?
In response to accusations by Sibrel and others that NASA never landed men on the moon, the Agency replied with just three words back in 2001.
“Yes, we did.”
Information came from Mental Floss and Popular Mechanics.
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Lindberg Kidnapping
There was a lot of excitement in 1927. The roaring 20s were still roaring along with a seemingly strong economy. Talking motion pictures or Talkies were the newest thing in entertainment. And a very handsome 25-year-old American named Charles Lindberg was attempting a daring feat.
On May 20, 1927 Lindberg left New York’s Roosevelt Field in a single-engine plane named the Spirit of St. Louis (businessmen from that city had funded his flight). Thirty-three hours and thirty minutes later he landed at Le Bourget (La Boor Zhe A) Aerodrome just north of Paris. He had become the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. His nickname was The Lone Eagle. (I just want to pause the story and remind our listeners that we talked of Lindbergh before in our Season 2 episode called MIND GAMES. We talked about this strange phenomenon called Sensed Presence or Third Man Syndrome. It’s when someone who is under a lot of mental and physical stress will experience the presence of another person or being that acts to comfort and encourage the individual to not give up. It’s been reported by many people and Lindburgh commented on experiencing it during his trans-atlantic flight. It’s a super interesting thing our brain does to help us survive harrowing experiences so go back and check it out.)
Lindberg’s daring captured the imagination of Americans as well as people from all around the world. He was greeted with a hero’s welcome in Paris and was later honored with a ticker tape parade in New York. The shy Midwesterner who grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota, became an instant celebrity. Time Magazine named him as their very first Man of the Year. A popular dance of the Flapper Era, the Lindie, was named for him. President Coolidge presented him with the Distinguished Flying Cross and Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. military awards. His achievement spurred significant global interest in commercial aviation and in air mail.
In 1929 Lindberg married Anne Morrow who was a writer and an aviation enthusiast. Together Charles and Anne flew around the country conducting exploratory flights and aerial surveys. Anne functioned as co-pilot and radio operator. She also became the first woman to receive a glider pilot’s license.
In June of 1930 the couple gave birth to their first child, Charles Lindberg Jr. who became known as the Eaglet. Then on March 1, 1932 the 20 month old toddler was reported as abducted from the second story of the family home. A handwritten ransom note was found at the scene. The case immediately gained international attention and became known as The Crime of the Century. The following month Lindberg paid out a $50,000 ransom that included gold certificates. But then on May 12, the toddler’s body was found in a grove of trees about 4 ½ miles from the Lindberg’s New Jersey home. His skull had been fractured.
Two years later in September of 1934 a German immigrant Bruno Richard Hauptman attempted to make a purchase using one of the gold certificates. A search was made of Hauptman’s home and much of the ransom money was located in his garage. A section of wood found in his attic was said to be an exact match to the ladder used in the kidnapping. Hauptman was arrested for the kidnapping and murder.
At his trial Hauptman claimed that the money didn’t belong to him, but to a friend named Isidor Fisch who had owed him money. He claimed that Fisch left the money with him before he returned to Germany where he had died the previous March. Nevertheless, Hauptman was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindberg Jr. He died in the electric chair in April 1936 after refusing a last-minute offer to reduce his sentence to life in prison without parole in exchange for a confession. Case closed!
Or is it? Over the years, various authors have cast doubt on the guilt of Hauptman. There appear to be many unanswered questions.
An article from cjonline.com, which is the website of the Topeka, Kansas Capital Journal, sheds some new and interesting light on this subject. In fact, it details a book by Lisa Pearlman called Suspect Number 1 – The Man Who Got Away. And who does Pearlman believe that this man is? None other than Charles Lindberg himself.
Pearlman is no novice when it comes to legal matters. She is a longtime attorney and was once the presiding judge of the California State Bar. She plunged into a deep dive about Charles Lindberg and came up with some interesting information.
Lindberg had befriended a noted French surgeon and biologist named Alexis Carrel, whose work on vascular suturing techniques won him the Nobel Prize in 1912. At the time of the Lindberg kidnapping Carrel was working on a perfusion pump which would enable living organs to exist outside of the human body during surgery. Lindberg offered his technical expertise, which, according to Carrel, had dramatically improved the pump.
Pearlman also found written notes by those close to Lindberg which indicated that he was not happy with the baby. He referred to it as a weakling. It’s head was abnormally too large and its legs too small. Pearlman speculates that Anne Lindberg may have inhaled toxic fumes as she was pregnant during their many airplane trips, and the baby’s health and development may have been compromised.
Carrel and Lindberg were both proponents of eugenics, the study of how to arrange reproduction to increase the likelihood of desirable inherited characteristics. You might recognize eugenics as part of the Nazi philosophy which promoted the idea that Northern European peoples were destined to be the superior race of the world. In fact, Lindberg was a vocal Nazi sympathizer in the 1930s. He was a guest in Hitler’s box during the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Olympic Games. During the Nazi occupation of France, Carrel became the head of the French Foundation for the study of Human Problems in Vichy France.
Part of eugenics was the idea that weak infants were meant to die. It was noted that Lindeberg never shed a tear at his son’s loss. He had never developed an attachment to his son and, according to some, was even nearly hostile toward him.
Pearlman theorizes that Lindberg decided to assist Carrel who hoped to improve his knowledge of the way the human body works by using the perfusion device to conduct experiments on the body of a living person, who would have to die as a result of those tests. Thus, in an odd twist of Abraham offering his son Isaac to God, Lindberg offered his son to science.
In his April 1932 annual report, Carrel identified Lindbergh as a key member of the team that had just completed a historic, month-long carotid artery experiment. Pearlman theorizes that Lindberg’s key contribution to the experiment was the sacrifice of his son. If this is the case, then Charles Lindberg Jr. would have died on Carrel’s operating table in March of 1932 and the kidnapping was a hoax.
Charles and Anne moved to Europe in 1935 to escape the media circus surrounding Hauptman’s trial. They returned in 1939 but were strong proponents of America staying out of the war. That changed after Pearl Harbor, but even after the end of the war, Lindberg maintained sympathetic ties with Germany. He and Ann had five more children, some are still alive today. According to Pearlman, Lindberg also fathered more children to German women in the years after World War II.
When someone like Lindberg reaches Hero Status, it is very difficult for public sympathies to turn against them. Thus, it would have been inconceivable to most Americans at the time to even consider that Lindberg could be responsible for his son’s death. The German accented Hauptman was a much more believable villain. Nevertheless, Pearlman raises some very interesting questions. Perhaps the Crime of the Century was also the Conspiracy Theory of the Century as well.
Information came from cjonline.com and from Wikipedia
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The 1985 NBA Draft
This information comes from and article by Chris Balard who writes for Sports Illustrated and si.com
Back in the early 1980s the National Basketball Association was in trouble. Cocaine use among players was widespread, attendance was dwindling, and television viewership was low. One of the contributors to the dwindling attendance and low viewership was that many of the teams in the league were not very talented. Six of the 23 franchises were in danger of going bankrupt. To make matters worse, the structure of the college draft actually encouraged teams to lose games (or Tank in the NBA vernacular) in order to have a chance to draft better players.
Here’s the way it worked. The league was divided into two divisions, East and West. The worst team in each division would meet in the commissioner’s office and flip a coin for the Number 1 pick. Our local Houston Rockets were experts at playing bad to get good. In 1982–83 the Rockets ripped off a series of stirring losing streaks and then won the coin flip for Ralph Sampson. A season later Houston set to work again, losing 20 of its last 27 games to again win the coin toss and the rights to draft Hakeem Olajuwon.
The following year the league’s new commissioner David Stern was determined to do something about the tanking teams. He came up with a new formula in which the teams with the seven worst records would each get an equal opportunity to participate in a lottery for the first pick in the 1985 draft. And what a pick!
Standing in at 7 feet tall and 240 pounds Patrick Ewing had led the Georgetown Hoyas to three college Final Four appearances, winning the national championship in 1984. He could score when near the basket but also had a beautiful 18 foot jump shot. He excelled at blocking shots and gobbling up rebounds. He was thought to be a once in a generation player and would change the fortunes of any NBA team fortunate enough to draft him.
Knowing that this was going to be a marquis event, Stern decided to hold the lottery on live television from the famous Starlight Roof on the 18th floor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in midtown Manhatton. Representatives of the seven teams were to be on hand if they were the lucky winner. Those teams were the San Diego Clippers, Golden State Warriors, Seattle Supersonics, Sacramento Kings, Atlanta Hawks, and the Indiana Pacers. Not exactly a who’s who of basketball greatness at that time. Oh wait, that’s only six teams. I left out one, the New York Knickerbockers.
And here is where the controversy enters. According to the fans of the previously mentioned six teams as well as other NBA skeptics, if your league is struggling and you have a superstar player coming out of the college draft, where do you want him to go? Sacramento? Nah. Seattle? Un huh. Indiana? No way. You want your big star in the biggest market, New York!
The lottery telecast was to be during the halftime of the NBA playoff game between Philadelphia 76ers and the Boston Celtics. The stage was set with a giant glass basketball shaped drum. Seven large envelopes measuring 1 foot square had been prepared with no markings on the outside. A large card with each team’s logo was on the inside of the envelope. At 1:45 p.m. the game went into halftime and the live feed switched to the Waldorf. What unfolded next has since become the Zapruder film of sports, watched and rewatched on YouTube and dissected by conspiracy theorists over and over again.
Quoting from the SI article, “A representative of the accounting firm Ernst and Whinney begins tossing seven envelopes into the plastic globe one at a time, pausing for the briefest of moments—perhaps to adjust his aim?—before dumping in the fourth, which bangs off the interior of the drum, creasing the corner.” The drum is spun around five times and then David Stern reaches into the drum, fumbles around for a moment, grasping and turning the envelopes, then lifting out the lucky one—which just so happens to have a creased corner. When the envelope was opened it contained, viola, The New York Knicks card.
The room which was filled with New York media erupted in cheers. Within an hour the ticket office at Madison Square Garden received over a thousand calls from people interested in season tickets. A Sports Illustrated photographer caught up with Patrick Ewing and handed him a Knicks uniform for a picture that would appear on the cover of the magazine with the words Jackpot! The Knicks Won Patrick Ewing.
But in Indiana a television station showed freeze frames of that fourth envelope being forced into the drum in such a way that it forced the corner to be bent. Other reports soon surfaced that the Knicks envelope had been kept in a freezer until just before the drawing. This would make it feel cold to the touch and Stern would have easily felt it. It also came out that the accounting firm Ernst and Whinney not only represented the NBA, they also represented the parent company which owned The New York Knicks.
So was there a conspiracy to ensure that the biggest star went to the biggest media market? Stern, who was very happy that people were talking about the lottery rather than drug use or teams folding up, laughed off the suggestion. “If people want to say that [the lottery was fixed], fine,” he said. “As long as they spell our name right. That means they’re interested in us. That’s terrific.”
Patrick Ewing went on to play for fifteen years with the Knicks. He had a great career taking the Knicks to the NBA finals twice but losing both times.
Prohibition Poisoning
According to usatoday.com a recent social media post garnered a lot of attention when it claimed that the U.S. Government once poisoned alcoholic drinks in order to get people to stop drinking it. But is there any truth to this? Let’s investigate.
Throughout recorded history we find evidence of governments and ruling authorities establishing laws which attempted to define and encourage appropriate behavior among the population. Of course, most modern societies benefit from and thrive in an environment of well-defined laws and rules. But sometimes a well-intentioned law which is designed to regulate certain behaviors can backfire and have unintended consequences.
In the early 1900s alcohol abuse was a growing concern in the U.S. Temperance movements had been around since the 1800s and were gaining momentum through and immediately after the World War I years. In many cases the Temperance Movement was also linked to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. These proponents advocated for a total ban on the sale of alcohol as a means of addressing poverty and other social issues. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, was ratified by the required number of states, and went into effect January 17, 1920. Known as the Prohibition Amendment, it declared the production, transport, and sale of intoxicating liquors including beer and wine to be illegal.
Well, it’s one thing to make a law, it’s quite another to get people to obey it. Almost overnight speakeasies and bootleg smuggling networks sprung up to meet the still strong demand of the thirsty public. Many people even began concocting their own home brew which became known as Bathtub Gin.
My wife’s grandfather in West Virginia ran a somewhat lucrative still during this time – that is until he got caught by the Revenuers as government agents came to be called.
One of the ingredients in making Bathtub Gin and other home brewed concoctions was an industrial product called wood alcohol which was used in paints and solvents. When government officials learned that wood alcohol was being used to make clandestine hooch, they took action. The companies that made industrial alcohol were required by law to add quinine, methyl alcohol, kerosine, and other toxic chemicals to wood alcohol in order to make it poisonous to drink.
This was not kept secret. The practice was well publicized in newspapers and on the hot new medium called radio. The public was strongly encouraged not to partake in any type of alcoholic beverages as the base ingredient could contain poisons. Many newspapers published editorials in favor of the practice. “Must Uncle Sam guarantee safety first for souses?” asked Nebraska’s Omaha Bee. But many people either didn’t listen or didn’t care.
Bootleg networks began hiring chemists to detox the tainted alcohol. They were paid quite well for their efforts too. (some have dubbed this the Chemists War) This prompted the government in 1926 to require more toxic chemicals be added. Later that year, between Christmas and New Years 41 people died in New York’s Bellevue hospital from alcohol poisoning. Several hundred more were treated for this condition and it is unknown how many of them experienced long term effects from consuming tainted alcohol. In the following year, 1927 over 700 deaths in New York City were attributed to alcohol poisoning. Civic leaders in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other areas began to publicly criticize the government policy. “Only one possessing the instincts of a wild beast would desire to kill or make blind the man who takes a drink of liquor, even if he purchased it from one violating the Prohibition statutes,” proclaimed Sen. James Reed of Missouri.
Support for prohibition began to wane in the late 1920s partly due to the impact of the government’s poisoning policies. As the Great Depression struck, opponents argued that the ban on alcohol denied jobs to the unemployed and much needed revenue to the government. In 1932 FDR ran on a platform of repealing the 18th Amendment. “What this nation needs is a good drink!” shouted Roosevelt on the campaign trail. Soon after his election Congress adopted a resolution for the 21st Amendment which would repeal the 18th.
It is unknown how many people died of alcohol poisoning during prohibition, but estimates run as high as 10,000. The 18th Amendment is the only amendment to the Constitution that has ever been repealed. This experiment in regulating behavior that the public didn’t want regulated was a spectacular failure. And thus the statement in the above mentioned Facebook post is in fact true.
This information came from usatoday.com, slate.com and Wikipedia.
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--SOURCES ----------------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bEUeMw31JY&list=PLx2GRxi-rDiFjDXxWByxm1IqWKHj4cGxZ
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/647719/conspiracy-theories-facts
https://deepenglish.com/lessons/was-queen-elizabeth-i-man/
https://www.biography.com/political-figures/edith-wilson-first-president-biography-facts
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a28434260/moon-landing-hoax-conspiracists/
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/647719/conspiracy-theories-facts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh
https://www.si.com/longform/2015/1985/ewing/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
